


The Seventh Day

by burymeinziam



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeinziam/pseuds/burymeinziam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where zayn hides out in his apartment for seven days and liam saves him with a pair of wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seventh Day

On the seventh day Zayn has been holed up in his apartment, Liam decides to make him a pair of wings.

He stands in the center of his apartment on seventy-second street with the curtains laced up tight, the thin wire spread out across his palms pliable and burning. It almost makes him want to cry as he gets down on his back and decides that this is where the wings should go and how far and how long; these are the metal strips for the feathers and this is how the light would make them shine if the curtains were to blow open and let the sun in.

Down on his knees, Liam bends the wire with stiff fingers and he’s never been an artist by any definition of the word, but his skin is quivering with excitement. The wire weaves between his fingers like a baby serpent, looping and pinching and mirroring. The early morning light seeps in through the thin material of the curtains covering Liam’s living room window making Liam feel as though it wants to celebrate with him.

When he’s finished, Liam hands them from the open rafters and all the hands on all of the clocks applaud. The wings rotate in small half circles above his head as he dials Zayn’s number cradling his cell phone between his ear and shoulder so he can use his hands to open the curtains. Light floods in, filling the sparse apartment and embraces Zayn’s wings with thin, brilliant arms.

But this is what he’s doing.

He’s standing outside of his studio apartment, the delicate wings strapped to his back. Liam is walking down the street to Zayn’s place to give him wings. He gets on the 59 bus and then off again without getting his $1.25 back after realizing that without the sun and the open air, the metal feathers won’t chime and the silence in Liam’s ears will be enough to make him deaf.

And that’s a lonely thought.

It doesn’t take long but by the time Liam reaches Zayn’s apartment his legs have gone numb and he’s positive that he hasn’t slept in what feels like seven hundred years and that’s older than some stars.

That’s another lonely thought.

But that’s not what Liam is really thinking about because this is what he’s doing.

He’s calling “Zayn” into the intercom and adding “I’ve come to make sure you’re still alive in there.”

There’s no response but an elderly man in a hand knit scarf and black slacks peers at Liam through wire-rimmed glasses as he walks down the sidewalk. A shadow passes over his face and Liam can see that the man fears him; fears who he might be with his wings and overly hopeful smile. The moment passes and so does the shadow and when the man’s face comes back into focus he’s looking out at the street where a sad faced woman is picking up change from the gutter.

This is what Liam is doing.

He’s leaning onto the intercom again, pressing his cheek to the round speaker as he says “Zayn, I know you’re in there. Open the door; I’ve brought you something.”

And then there’s static crackling over the speaker and Zayn’s voice saying “I don’t want it, Li. Leave me alone. Please.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Liam replies. “I mean, if you don’t let me in now I’m going to have to wait outside until you do. And if I do that I’m facing the chances of getting raped or pillaged.” And then there’s a man who’s walking in and holds the door open and Liam’s adding “I’m coming up” before he slips through the door just before he can hear Zayn telling him to go fuck himself because he’s being ridiculous.

Liam climbs the stairs at his own pace, careful not to graze the walls with Zayn’s wings. The light in the building is buttery and smells of lavender and something very raw and humane. It’s the smell of leaving, Liam thinks; a smell of sadness and loneliness that leads Liam up six flights of stairs to Zayn’s miserable doorway and when he gets there Liam is shocked by the beauty of Zayn’s front door. It’s as if someone has exited from it, truly left, and so the chipped paint and the loose metal numbers that used to be firmly screwed into the wood carry a finality about them.

It’s sad and it’s beautiful, but Liam doesn’t dwell on it because this is what he’s doing.

He’s knocking on the door, quietly at first and then louder until Zayn shouts at him to go away.

“Just let me in, okay?” Liam says. “You can’t stay locked in there forever.”

“Watch me,” Zayn responds.

Liam sighs. “Don’t be like this, Zayn. You’re just proving her point.”

There’s a single pained second that passes them by before the door flies open. And then there’s Zayn, red-faced with fury as he shouts “You bastard! How could you even think to say something like that when you _know_ that I –”

Liam smiles. “Because it got you to open the door, didn’t it?” He places a gentle hand on Zayn’s shoulder before stepping inside, stopping in the center of the living room.

“Li, you can’t stay here,” Zayn says. “I don’t want you here.”

“Why?” Liam asks, sliding the wings from his shoulders.

Zayn’s face plummets from a reddish purple to an ashen gray as he drags a hand over his face and sighs “Because I don’t want anybody; I don’t need anybody. So can you just go?”

Liam drops to the couch, spreads out his limbs and props his feet up on the coffee table. “No, Zayn. You see, what you don’t understand is that I can’t. I can’t leave you here alone because she already did that and I’m not her. Just because we fell out for a while doesn’t I’m on her side. I’m still your best friend. That’s never changed.”

Zayn is silent then, livid. Liam holds onto his faze for no more than four or five seconds before Zayn deflates. It’s kind of like the way it happens with balloons and breathing chests and wide-eyed character’s inflated on people’s front lawns around the holidays. Zayn unclenches his fists, all the color draining from his face, and then, slowly, as if someone has pulled a plug or flipped a switch somewhere his back stoops and his chin drops down to his chest. Zayn just crumbles like a marionette cute loose and Liam is scrambling from the couch and grabbing onto Zayn’s shoulders just as his fragile knees buckle and he just sort of collapses into Liam like a child.

“What did I do, Li?” Zayn sobs raggedly into Liam’s chest. His thin fingers curl and uncurl around the collar of Liam’s coat. “What did I do to make her leave?”

Liam shushes him, cradling Zayn’s heavy shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay,” he says because that’s all he can really think of.

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t.”

Zayn pulls away from Liam’s shirt, furiously wiping at his eyes. “Then why would you say that, Liam? What use is any of this if I don’t even know if it will be okay?”

“Just trust me,” Liam tells him with a soft smile.

“Fuck, Liam just – please. I just want to be alone now okay?” Zayn mumbles into the palms of his hands. He moves away from Liam over to his large living room window, folding his arms over his chest as the sunlight filtering in creates a silhouette of his curved, t-shirted spine.

This is what Liam is doing.

He’s sighing and stepping quietly out of the living room, flipping on the kitchen light. The kitchen is immaculate, really. The counters have been wiped down and bleached, the floor waxed. Ever cup and every plate has been placed back inside of the cupboards instead of being scattered about because Zayn has always been a bit too lazy to put anything away. Liam feels as though he shouldn’t even touch anything but he does as he slides open the cabinet above the dishwasher to pull out two mugs as the water in the sink runs hot. He fills them to the brim, drops the last of Zayn’s chamomile flowers into the steaming water, and watches as the water plumes a dusty yellow.

From the living room, Liam can hear him breathing. There’s a slight hitch to every slow intake of air, a sigh on every release. That scent of sadness, the one from the hallway, wafts over Liam in giant waves settling under his skin and in between the hairs on his arms. As the tea starts to darken, Liam strains out the flowers and puts them into the microwave to heat it up one last time. Liam closes his eyes. This apartment tricks him into hearing voices that aren’t really there, seeing people who have already left with suitcases in their hands and reflections of doorways in their eyes. Liam’s blood knows who he is, but his heart knows who he loves and from the living room he can hear Zayn bleeding.

Since Liam has left, the shadows have changed. Near the window, Zayn is just a sad blackened outline against the sharp blue of light with his shape leaking like ink over the hardwood floor. Liam notices on the floor, in the small alcove where the window is located that there is a scattered mess of papers and envelops strewn about. They stand out like scars in an otherwise blindingly clean apartment.

Carefully handling the mugs so that he doesn’t spill the scalding tea on his hands, Liam climbs the small staircase leading into the raised alcove. Zayn doesn’t turn around but Liam can see the tension of the muscles beneath his shirt, the sad arms wound tight around his middle just to keep a solid grip on the here and the now and the why although the last one is so abstract that his fingertips are blossoming white with the pressure of it all.

The mugs clink together as Liam sets them down on the small antique side table that Zayn found in an old shop downtown. For some reason Liam can’t put his finger on, he thinks it belongs here now more than it ever did when her things still adorned its glossy hand-painted table top. It stands against the wall now, haunted and lonely and begging to be of some use again and Liam thinks that, if it could, it would smile as he sets the tea down on top of it.

“I made us some tea,” Liam says. “You’re favorite. Why don’t you come sit and talk with me for a while?”

Zayn doesn’t turn from the window. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Alright,” Liam returns. “That’s fine. We could just sit, or we could go for a walk or—”

“I don’t want to do anything!” Zayn pivots around, his face ravaged with pain and anger and frustration. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to go out. I just… I can’t do any of those things. Not—not yet.” Zayn’s breath comes in quick short bursts, released like blinded knives. Liam watches as Zayn worries at the hem of his shirt with angry, twitching fingers tugging at the material so it stretches down to mid-thigh. And then he’s closing his eyes, taking in deep breathes and using both of his hands to violently scrunch up his hair so that it pokes out in static frustration.

“I don’t know how to do any of those things anymore, Li,” Zayn finally says, his voice broken. “I can’t remember what it’s like; it’s been too long.”

He stands just a few feet away from Liam, vulnerable, his arms dangling dejectedly at his sides and there is this look on Zayn’s face that makes Liam want to peel off all of his own skin.

But he doesn’t think about that for too long because this is what Liam is doing.

He’s reaching out, wrapping his fingers around Zayn’s wrist and pulling the other boy toward him. He kisses Zayn’s sad, pink lips hard enough for his teeth to pinch at the inside of his mouth and then Liam hugs him close.

This is what Liam is doing.

“I am holding my very best friend in the world,” Liam murmurs into the shell of Zayn’s ear. Then he shakily whispers. “Don’t make me like this, Zayn. I won’t be able to stand it if I don’t see you smile this very second.”

Zayn pulls out of Liam’s arms slightly, staring at Liam with parted lips and swollen eyes, but no smile graces his face. His fingers are wound tightly around the flaps of Liam’s jacket as he says “I think I need you to stay with me now, okay?”

Liam nods. “Okay.”

This is what Liam is doing.

He’s sitting with Zayn at the alcove facing him with letters and envelopes between them. Liam picks up a paper that is torn and wrinkled from a countless number of handlings.

“What are these?”

“Letters. She wrote to me while she was away…”

Liam reads the letter over quickly and blushes at the clumsy, lustful prose. The paper slips easily from his hand.

“I’ve been sitting here for a week reading them over and over again until I can barely keep my eyes open. Then I get up and clean because I don’t know what else to do… and then I read them all over again.”

Liam can feel the calming effects of the tea they’d been drinking in his arms, and then in his head and then it’s all over. “What are you looking for, Zayn?” He asks.

Zayn shrugs. “I don’t know… I just feel like I need to find one reason why I ever loved her in the first place.”

“Why?”

“Why did I love her?”

Liam shakes his head, picking up a fistful of the wrinkled letters, holding them up toward Zayn’s face. “Zayn, there’s no use in analyzing her words trying to find where you went wrong or right. It’ll only tear you apart.”

Zayn scrambles for the crumpled letters. “I know that, Li, I do, but I just—”

“You shouldn’t be looking for reasons why you loved her,” Liam continues. “You should be finding all the reasons why she ever loved you.”

Somewhere outside a car alarm goes off. A child shrieks with laughter. A telephone rings. The world just beyond the window is breathing and here is Liam and here is Zayn and they are not a part of it all because they have chosen not to be.

This is what Liam is doing.

He’s resting his hand against Zayn’s knee, saying “Go ahead. I’m serious. I want you to look and see just why you deserve to be loved.”

Zayn’s hands are shaking slightly; Liam can hear the papers rustling as they brush against each other. Zayn stares at them for a long time and then when his fingers loosen they dance to the floor.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re just letters, Liam; they don’t mean anything. Perrie left, remember?”

Liam nods. “And now you think there’s no reason for anyone to love you? You think that’s all they are? Just words on a sheet of paper?”

“That’s _exactly_ what they are.”

In the silence that ensues, Liam watches Zayn.

He watches the way he gnaws on his lower lip and pulls absently at the raw skin around his chewed up nails. This isn’t the Zayn he knows. It’s not the Zayn he used to sneak away with from time to time when they were on tour. It’s not the Zayn he’d kiss on the nights they got a little too drunk and then pretend as if it never happened the next morning. Most of all, this isn’t Liam’s best friend; the boy he loves more than anything in the world.

And Liam has to ask “What made you so goddamned bitter?”

“Liam,” his name comes out in a ragged breath expelled from Zayn’s tired lungs and it burns Liam to his very core because he never wanted this. He never wanted this for Zayn and even though he knows it’s not his fault, Liam feels as though it is because he’d always wanted Perrie to leave. He knew Zayn loved her and that she loved him back and that sometimes it’s all about timing and fate and what is and isn’t meant to be and the who and the what and the when, but Liam was also selfish. He was selfish because he hated her just as much as he found her perfectly agreeable and good for Zayn. Liam hated how she made Zayn laugh and pushed his hair out of his face when it grew too long and Zayn was too lazy to cut it. Liam hated the pet names and the way Zayn sometimes looked at her like she was the only girl in the world and he hated it because when they were drunk and honest and laid out under the stars Zayn would sometimes give Liam that same look and he knew the feeling was mutual; that Zayn loved them both but Perrie just got there first and sometimes circumstances suck and the timing is all wrong and in a different world maybe things would be different but this is the way things are and this is what they’re doing.

Liam feels guilty because now Zayn looks so small and sad because the only girl in the world left him and he can’t for the life of him figure out why and Liam has this itching feeling it’s because of him and his aching heart.

“Liam.” His ragged breath of his name pushed from Zayn’s throat clogged with tears. “I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough of a reason to make him stay.”

And then it’s there; the sudden, unforgiving rush of anger and frustration steaming through Liam’s veins, reddening his cheeks and washing away the guilt and the shame because Zayn really should know better.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Liam says. “You know why she left.”

“I do!” Zayn says, his voice rising in volume but sounding just as tired. “She said to me ‘Zayn, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be with you like this. It’s ripping my brain and my heart to pieces.’”

Liam shakes his head. “That’s not all.”

Then Zayn adds quietly, pushing himself to his feet, the crush of old paper neglected beneath the soles of his shoes. “She said ‘I’m leaving, Zayn, because I don’t know how much more of this I can take before getting real messed up in the head.”

“And then?”

And then there’s only the sound of Zayn trying to catch his breath. Liam can see what his face will look like in his mind, fury tangling his brows, pinching his lips together. Liam knows it for a fact inside of his ever racing mind.

And then “She said to me ‘somebody loves you so much and… and it can’t be me anymore, so I’m going to leave…’”

This is what Liam is doing.

He’s pressing his face to the window, absorbing some of the warmth radiating from the outside world he’s so consciously separated himself from as Zayn drifts closer. His shoulders twitch when he feels the hand come to rest between his shoulder blades, his fingers flexing against the window frame.

“Is it true?”  Zayn’s hands are solid and so very close to Liam’s skin.

He turns around then, hands dangling by his hips. Says “I would never lie to you, Zayn” before cupping Zayn’s cheek and smoothing his thumb along his cheekbone. The skin there is sticky with dried tears and it’s the softest skin Liam can ever remember touching.

Moving past Zayn, Liam crosses the alcove and into the living room. The wings rest on the floor like shattered bits of glass and as Liam bends to pick them up they shimmer like wind chimes. The magic in them seeps through his burning skin, sending shivers down his spine.

“What’s that?” Zayn asks from where he’s still standing near the window.

“I made you a pair of wings,” Liam says with a sheepish smile. The one he can remember Zayn confessing he loved one night when it was just them and a bottle of wine in Liam’s hotel room at three in the morning because Zayn couldn’t sleep. There’s a shrug of his shoulders before he adds “its tissue paper and wire and aluminum… in case you wanted to see things from a new perspective.”

Zayn’s eyes stay steady on the chiming wings as Liam carries them back to the alcove. His face is bewildered and sweet and Liam has never been more in love.

“Turn around.”

Zayn’s face splits into a puzzled half-smile as he presents his thin, t-shirt covered back, arms spread eager and waiting. Liam can’t help but to grin before he slips the wings over Zayn’s left arm, then his right, securing them at the curve of his shoulders with strips of elastic and metal. They reflect the light pouring through the window, fragmenting it across Liam’s front and the walls around them. Liam runs his fingers down Zayn’s spine before leaning forward to press a kiss at the base of his neck causing Zayn to tremble beneath his touch.

This is what Liam is doing.

He’s watching Zayn as he stands for a long moment, arms still outstretched and fingers spread as if he’s reaching for something Liam can no longer see. And then Zayn is turning around and wearing a smile that is small and soft and everything Liam could ever hope for as he approaches Liam, arms laced around the other boy’s neck as he says “you saved me.”

This is what Liam is doing.

He’s wrapping his arms around a slender waist, burying his face into the hair of a boy who smells of lavender and spent cigarettes.

“I just wanted you to be able to see everything the way I do,” he says. “I wanted you to see yourself the way I do.”

Zayn pulls back to look at Liam, the wings towering crookedly above his head casting shadows along the floor.  And then he’s kissing Liam short and small and sweet and it’s nothing like Liam expects because it’s better and this is what he is doing.

Liam is grinning, biting hard on his bottom lip just to keep from smiling too hard as he pulls away from Zayn and bushing hair that is growing a bit too long away from his face. They laugh together somewhat nervously, but Zayn’s smile is genuine as he leans back in and kisses the corner of Liam’s mouth because he knows and he feels it too.

It’s the seventh day and Liam is standing in the center of his best friend’s apartment. Zayn is wearing a pair of wings made of tissue paper and aluminum. He’s smiling and Liam is smiling and everything is nervous and easy and as they feel it should be.

Zayn leans forward, pressing their foreheads together as his eyes sink into Liam’s. There’s another brief brushing of lips before there’s a whisper and a soft exhale of breath.

“Thank you.”

It’s the seventh day and this is what Liam is doing. 


End file.
